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SUBSTANCE OF REMARKS 

OFFERED BY 

HIS HONOR LIEUT. GOV. GREENE, 

IN THE 

SENATE OF RHODE ISLAND, 

JANUAEY 30 AND 31, 1867, O; 

On the Proposed Amendment of the United States Constitution, 



PROVIDENCE: 

PRESS OF THE DAILY JOURNAL. 







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EEMAEKS 


Maij it please your Excellency : We are called 
upon to express our approval or disapproval of a 
proposed amendment of our national constitution : 
always a grave and serious business, but never 
more so, in my judgment, than in the present in¬ 
stance. For I sincerely believe, that the termina¬ 
tion of our country’s troubles, and the early return 
of the rebel states to their normal relations to the 
Union, depend, m a good measure upon the 
adoption of the proposed amendment. In this 
view of the importance of the occasion, I venture 
to ask the attention of the Senate, while I offer, 
in some detail, the reasons which will govern my 
vote upon it. 

In the outset, it occurs to me to remark, in 
response to a query propounded the other day by 
the Senator from South Kingstown, that the amend 
ment must be adopted as a whole, or not at all. 
The rejection by this body of a single word 
would be equivalent to a rejection of the whole. 
It comes to us as a unit from the Congress of the 
United States; and no change that we might 
make, could go back to that body for their recon¬ 
sideration and concurrence. 

In what I propose to say, sir, on the subject of 
this amendment, I shall address myselt to three 
specific points : 

First—the amendment itself. 

Second—the question whether it is properly— 
constitutionally—before us for our action; (for 
this, it will be seen, has been doubted in a high 
official quarter.) 

Third—the expediency of its ad )ption. 

And first, of the amendment itself—and this is 
presented to us in five sections : the last of which, 
being merely directory to the Legislative Depart¬ 
ment of the Government to enact the necessary 
laws to give the amendment effect should it be 
adopted, rcijuires no discussion here. What I 
shall say, therefore, upon my first point will be 
applicable only to the first four sections ; which I 
will discuss section by section, in the order in 
which they are presented. 

The first section, then, embraces two clauses : 
the first clause declaring that all persons born or 
naturalized in the United States, and within the 
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United 
States and of the States whereof they may be in¬ 
habitants. The second clause prohibits any State 
from making or enforcing any law which shall 
abridge the rights of citizenship, or deprive a citi¬ 
zen of life, liberty, or property, without due pro- 


I cess of law. I will say a few words upon each of 
these two clauses. And as to the first, every body 
understands that it aims at the extinction of a dis¬ 
crimination heretofore supposed to exist between 
the black and white races, touching the rights of 
citizenship. Whether this discrimination has been 
in truth right or wrong-constitutional or unconsti¬ 
tutional—the Supreme Court of the United States 
having, in the Dred Scott case, decided it to be the 
former, I consider this amendment as in the nature 
of an appeal from the Supreme Court to the Ameri¬ 
can people in behalf of the black race, whose 
rights of citizenship the decision of that court de¬ 
nies. Now the problem presented by this aspect 
of the matter, is, what should be the rightful po¬ 
litical status of the negro. 

In my investigation of this problem, sir, for ’ 
my own satisfaction and the formation of a just 
opinion, I have carefully divested myself of all 
prejudice—whether of education, or otherwise— 
and marched fairly and squarely up to the pure 
abstraction : and I have gone directly back to the 
beginning and taken my start from the original 
idea of the social compact. Starting at this point. 

I have imagined this community of Ehode Island 
engaging, for the first time, in the business of 
framing a system of government; and that I 
might solve the problem more clearly to my own 
thought, I have proposed three hypotheses : First, 
That the whites and blacks of the community 
were numerically equal. Second, that the blacks 
were numerically superior. Third, that the nu¬ 
merical superiority was with the whites. Now, 
in regard to the first of these hypotheses, we may 
theoretically assume, that an equality of numbers 
between the tv^o races, would imply an equality of 
physical forces; and thus, in a contest about the 
rights of citizenshi]) between the two, the alterna¬ 
tive would be presented, of either a Kilkenny 
demonstration which should destroy both, or a 
submission to equal terms by which both should 
be preserved—and my reading of human nature 
teaches me to think, that, in the case supposed of 
numerical equality, the latter branch of the alter¬ 
native would bo adopted. 

But, sir, to my second hypothesis : The blacks 
outnumber the whites. And now what shall the 
white man do ? He appeals to the black, with 
the assertion of his manhood •: that he is born to 
the same earth, the same air and the same light of 
Heaven as the black man; and is entitled to the 
same God-given rights in all the relations that be- 





long to the condition of humanity. This appeal 
stands upon the everlasting foundation of Jus¬ 
tice. The kind heart, if not the Strong brain, of 
the black man, cannot resist it; and the white 
man is admitted to the equality he claims. 

But, further, sir, to my third hypothesis, in 
which the numerical superiority is with the whites 
—and now what shall the black man do ? He 
makes the same appeal we have supposed the 
white man would do under the same circum¬ 
stances; and Justice demands that the appeal be 
answered in the same manner that I have supposed 
the black man would have answered it. He who 
denies this, denies Christianity. “Do unto others 
as you would that others should do unto you.’’ 

With this simple analysis, sir,—simple—I al¬ 
most fear it may seem to some—-almost to the 
point of weakness—the problem is solved with me 
as to what should be the rightful political status of 
the negro. 

I now come to the second clause of the first 
section. To the first branch of this clause—pro¬ 
hibiting the States from abridging the rights of 
citizenship—there seems to be no objection. But, 
according to Mr. Secretary of the Interior, 
Browning—in a letter of October last, ostenta¬ 
tiously published as having the direct approval 
and endorsement of the person now occupying the 
Presidential chair—-the last branch of the clause 
will, if the amendment be adopted, “be certainly 
used substantially to annihilate the State Judicia¬ 
ries.” That is : the words “nor shall any State 
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, 
without due process of law,” will, by the appellate 
process, give such control to the National over the 
.Stnm .Tndiciaries, as will certainly annihilate the 
latter. It is difficult to speak of this proposition 
in terms of respect. It refutes itself. To give it 
any sensible meaning, it assumes the introduction 
into the constitution of a new and fatal principle 
in connection with the judicial power; whereas, it 
can be only an enlargement, by the ])ossible in¬ 
crease of appellate cases, of a vitally important 
principle already there. It assumes too, an organ¬ 
ic antagonism between the National and State Ju¬ 
diciaries, of the existence of which no jtart of our 
past history affords any proof; and which, 
indeed, could not exist a year consistently with 
the harmonious action of our system of govern¬ 
ment. I dismiss the point, sir, with the simple re¬ 
mark, that I should have thought it puerile to 
notice it but for the high official source from which 
it emanated. 

Thus much for the first section of the proposed 
amendment. 

The second section proposes a new basis of re¬ 
presentation in the popular branch of Con¬ 
gress. It makes universal suffrage to all male in¬ 
habitants over twenty-one years of age, a con¬ 
dition of a full representation by a State, of the 
whole population. This is a sort of compromise 
between the principle which would retain the 
power Over suffrage to tlie States, where it has al¬ 
ways been, on the one hand, and such a contin¬ 
gent limitation in the exercise of that power as 
wauld probably prevent class discriminations, on 
the other. That something needed to be done in re¬ 
gard to the basis of representation, as the effect 
of the emancipation of 4,000,000 slaves, thereby 


increasing the apportionment in the late slave 
states from three-fifths of that number to five- 
fifths, or a unit, everybody seems to admit. But, 
in my judgment, the provision does not go far 
enough. The suffrage should have been made 
absolute —at least in all national elections. In 
this I agree with the Senator from South Kings¬ 
town, (Mr. Hazard.) But I cannot agree with him 
in the decision I fear he may have formed, of re¬ 
jecting the whole amendment on account of this 
particular, but not vital, deficiency. The pro¬ 
vision is good as far as it goes. And I, for one, 
cannot reject the part simply because I cannot 
get the whole. I am thankful for the boon of to¬ 
day, small though it be. To-morrow will 
bring its appropriate addition; and so, with the 
progress of civilization in the lapse of time, our 
country must some dav realize the complete and 
perpetual establishment of universal suffrage. It 
is the foundation principle of the Republican 
idea. A Republic could hardly exist long with¬ 
out it; for there would be a denial of that great 
central element—equality—which is its life. To 
be sure, our nation has gone on for nearly eighty 
years, with more or less of restricted suffrage. 
But it has been a sickly thing, getting constantly 
weaker and weaker, until we may feel assured its 
days are numbered—that it is in articulo mortis — 
at the point of death. We have heard much of 
property dfualifications, of educational qualifica¬ 
tions, and the like, in connection with the right 
of suffrage. But the truest, surest and best qual¬ 
ification for the exercise of the right, is to give 
it. 

The third section of the proposed amendment, 
would forever disqualify for office, the leading 
men of the late rebellion. Surely a mild pun¬ 
ishment for treason—and such treason !—and that 
too with the qualification that a vote of two- 
thirds of both Houses of Congress may relieve 
the disability in a particular case. Two objec¬ 
tions, however, are ui'ged against the provision : 
First, that such disqualification would shut out 
the ablest men in the rebel states from the public 
service; and second, that, the rebellion being at 
an end, the past should be forgotten, and all mat¬ 
ters reinstated to their old positions. As to the 
first of these objections, it presents to my mind 
the strongest argument in favor of the provision ; 
for just in proportion to the ability of the men re¬ 
ferred to, was the villany of their treason, and 
their desert of punishment for it, as well as the 
danger of trusting them with a return to power. 
As to the second objection, if the struggle through 
which we have passed at such a cost of blood and 
treasure, had been a mere (jame, in which two 
parties, upon a banter, had taken the field simply 
to see which could whip, there might be some¬ 
thing in it. But not such was that greatest strug¬ 
gle of all history. It was rather the struggle of 
a great government for its existence against a fear¬ 
ful and gigantic conspiracy of bad and desperate 
meti, who would have overthrown it. Let these 
men go to their just reward. 

The fourth section makes forever sacred the 
National indebtedness, and forever ignores the 
indebtedness incurred by traitors to enable them to 
overthrow their country. I cannot but feel that 
the first of these provisions is superfluous: for 



5 


such is my faith in the virtue and intcllif^ence of 
the American people, that no man or party in 
this nation will ever dare to sujjjjest the idea of 
repudiation. Still it can do no harm to have the 
provision there. As to the second provision, re¬ 
lating to the rebel debt, I consider it important in 
reterence to future possible party fluctuations, 
which might give vitality to efforts tor its recogni¬ 
tion. 

,11. The second point I proposed to discuss, is 
the question,—whether the proposed amendment 
is properly—constitutionally—before us for our ac¬ 
tion. I make this point, because the Vice Presi¬ 
dent of the United States, occupying the Presi¬ 
dential chair, in a communication to Congress, in 
response to their request that he would cause the 
Governors of the several States to be notifled of 
the passage of the proposed amendment, by two- 
thirds of both Houses, savv proper, gratuitously, 
to intimate more than a doubt of the constitution¬ 
ality of the whole proceeding, and he vindicates 
his position upon four grounds : 

First, That the proposed amendment was not 
presented to him for his approval. 

Second, That eleven States were not represent¬ 
ed in the Congress at the time of the passage of 
the amendment. 

Third, That this particular issue was not be¬ 
fore the people at the time the Congress was 
elected ; and. 

Fourth, That the Legislatures of the several i 
Slates were not elected with the view of passing 
upon such a question. 

I will discuss these points in their order : And 
first, that the proposed amendment was not present¬ 
ed to the Executive for his approval. In taking this 
ground, the Vice President has overlooked the 
lesson frnm precedent, and has given a new and 
heretofore unclaimed reading to the Constitution. 
First of precedent: Ten amendments were adopt¬ 
ed during the administration of VVasliington and 
one during the administration of Jefferson. No 
one of these was presented to the President for 
his approval; and seventy or eighty years have 
elapsed and no one has ever questioned their 
validity. The amendnieut adopted in Jefferson s 
time made an essential change in the mode of 
electing President and Vice President. If tliat 
amendment were yoid because of its non-submis¬ 
sion to the Executive approval, the present Vice- 
President, who was elected under that amendment, 
liolds his office without constitutional warrant. 
l*erhaps the nation might not be unwilling for 
the time being, to concede his proposition, if, in 
conformity with it, he would forthwith vacate 
the Presidential chair. 

But again : The Vice President has clearly 
misread the Constitution. The seventh section 
of the first article provides that bills passing both 
houses of Congress shall be presented to the Pre¬ 
sident for his approval, and if returned without 
his approval, they must be repassed by two-thirds 
of both houses before they can become laws. An¬ 
other subsequent clause in the same section, and 
the one on which the Vice President relies in the 
present instance, provides that orders, resolutions 
and votes, requiring the concurrence of both 
Tlopsps .shall be presented to the President for his 


approval as in the case of bills. Now the question 
is, whether a resolution of two-thirds of botii 
Houses, proposing to the States an amendment of 
the Constitution, as in the instance before us, 
comes within tbe clause last above referred to. A 
word or two, I think, will settle this question. 

It must be borne in mind, then, that the rule in 
construing a constitution or a law, in reference to 
the connection which different parts may bear to 
each other, requires that these different parts shall 
relate to the same subject matter. The provisions 
in relation to bills, orders, resolutions and votes 
in the seventh section of the first article, all re¬ 
ferring to the same subject matter, stand on the 
same ground in reference to the Executive ap¬ 
proval. But the provision for amendments in 
the fifth article of the Constitution, referring to 
an entirely different subject matter, can have no 
proper connection with the provisions of the 
seventh section of. the first article, and therefore 
cannot properly be construed as having any re¬ 
lation to them. The naked provision, therefore, 
in the fifth article, providing that “ Congress, 
whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it 
necessary, shall propose amendments to the Con¬ 
stitution,” clearly excludes all action on the part 
of the Executive, as in the case of bills, &c., in 
ordinary legislation. 

rhe view thus presented derives additional if 
not conclusive force from the fact, that there is 
another mode of amending the Constitution be¬ 
sides that of the original action of the two Houses 
of Congress, viz.: “On the application of two- 
thirds of tlie States, Congress shall call a conven¬ 
tion for [»roposintr amendments. &c.,” “shall call a 
convention.” Now, suppose such an apiflieatirn to 
be made; would any one contend that a resolu¬ 
tion, jiassed by the Congress for calling a con¬ 
vention, in compliance with this imperative require¬ 
ment of the Constitution, should be presented to 
the President for his approval If it should, 
tlien, the people have enacted a power to defeat 
themselves—and yet this is a resolution, standing 
in the same category with the one undei’ which, 
in the present instance, the Vice-President claims 
the right of Executive interference. 

I have been thus particular in presenting this 
argument, because I have heard intelligent and 
even learned men cxjiress their doubts about it, 
notwithstanding thq past action of the Govern¬ 
ment, so clearly settling the principle as exclud¬ 
ing the Executive action. 

I ])ass, sir, to the second point in the Vice- 
President’s communication, viz.: That eleven 
States were not rejtresented in Congress at the 
tinieof tbe passage of the proposed amendment. 
W by, sir, were they not represented there'? Were 
they not away voluntarily, and in a condition of 
recreancy to their constitutional duties 1 And 
shall tile recreant absence of these States from 
the places where their duties should be performed, 
be jierinitred to block the wheels of this govern- 
meni, and prevent its doing in the absence of these 
States what it might have done had they been 
present f If so, then a combination of the States, 
however small in number, or even a single State, 
might at any moment destroy the Government. 
These enquiries bring up the whole ([uesiion of 
the actual relations winch these rebel.States now 





sustain to the Government of the Union. This 
question I proceed briefly to discuss. 

Fortunately the Vice-President has furnished 
us with a salient starting point in this discussion. 
For he asserts in his communication that the 
eleven States had become “ restored to their prac¬ 
tical relations to the Union, excepting Texas,” 
by which assertion he admits that these practical 
relations had been suspended. Now is it in fact 
true that these relations have been restored as as¬ 
serted by the Vice-Presidentl Let us see. 

Two questions naturally occur. First, when 
did these relations become suspended ? Second, 
when and by what means or instrumentality 
should they be restored 1 

First. These relations must have been sus¬ 
pended when the ordinances of secession were 
passed. The mere civil war could not have sus¬ 
pended them, because that might have been the 
insurrectionary work of individuals without any 
formal action of the State, as in the cases of Ken¬ 
tucky and Maryland; and the end of such a 
war would in such case have found the States pre¬ 
cisely where they were when the war commenced, 
with their governments unchanged, as in the twe 
cases named. But the ordinances of secession were 
the acts of the States; and the necessary effect 
of these acts was to abrogate their government, 
in their relations to the Union; and this abro¬ 
gation placed those States in a position ecpiivalent 
to that of having no governments at all, for all the 
purposes of the national Constitution. Now, 
these States, having no governments at all by force 
of the ordinances of secession, could not be rein¬ 
stated to the governments they had abrogated by 
for^^-. of the termination of the war, or even by a 
repeal of the ordinances themselves. Hence my 
second inquiry, when and by what instrumentality 
should the relations of these States be restored ? 
The answer is, when new Constitutions shall be 
presented by a new action of these States to the 
Congress ot the United States, for their a])proval 
under the provision of the Constitution requiring 
Congress to guaranty to the States a “ Bepublican 
form of government.” 

Now, the assertion of the Vice President, that 
“the practical relations of the rebel States had 
been restored,” is founded on no action like this ; 
for no such action has been had. On what, then, 
is that assertion founded? Evidently on the 
assumption, in the very face of the Constitution, 
that to the Executive and not the Legislative de¬ 
partment of the government, belongs the ])ower 
of determining the relations which the States bear 
to the Union, whether of Republican form or not. 
And here begins the difficulty between the Vice- 
President and the Congress ; and in my judg¬ 
ment the whole difficulty is settled, and the error 
of the Vice-President exposed, by reference to the 
distinction between military and civil power, 
which the Vice-President has strangely over¬ 
looked. I affirm, then, that the Vice-President, 
in all this business of reconstruction, in his procla¬ 
mations authorizing the people of Mississippi and 
North Carolina, and I believe other States, to es¬ 
tablish civil governments ; to elect conventions to 
frame constitutions, and legislatures to enact 
laws ; prescribing his own arWtrary rules for the 
suffrage which should determine the elections; I 


say the Vice-President, in all this course of pro¬ 
ceeding, forgot or ignored the distinction between 
military and civil power; between his military 
position as commander-in-chief of the armies, and 
his civil position as simply exercising the func¬ 
tions of President of the United States. In the 
former—the military department—under martial 
law, he might exercise his power to any extent 
that the safety of the country might require. In 
the latter—the civil department of the govern¬ 
ment—he had no more power over the rebel 
States than he has this day over this State of 
Rhode Island. All that he has done, therefore,, 
in civil affairs in those States, has been—wit¬ 
tingly or unwittingly—usurpation upon a collos- 
sal scale; usurpation which, if tolerated without 
resistance, in frequent repetitions, must finally 
terminate in a military despotism. 

On this subject of “practical relations,” I 
would add, that if those relations have been sus¬ 
pended for one thing they have been suspended 
for all: if for the election of memoers to Con¬ 
gress, which is admitted, then for electors of 
President and Vice President; and if for these, 
then for passing upon proposed amendments of 
the Constitution; and hence upon the question 
now before us the concurrence of three-fourths of 
twenty-six States—that is, the votes of twenty-one 
States,will establish the pending amendment as a 
part of the Constitution. Hence I regard the 
submission of the amendment to the Rebel 
States, at the present time, as a mere matter of 
form—harmless to be sure as affecting the result, 
and perhaps not without value as a means of as¬ 
certaining the present spirit of the Rebel States 
towards the Union. 

The third and fourth objections of the Vice Pre¬ 
sident to the constitutionality of this proceeding, 
viz., that the proposed amendment was not made 
an issue in the elections to Congress and the State 
legislatures may be treated of together; for they 
both stand on the same foundation. To state the 
proposition is to refute it; for no one can fail 
to see that whatever question comes up in 
Congress or in a State legislature, every member 
is bound to act upon, whether such question had 
been made an issue before the people at his elec¬ 
tion or not. Any other view would make legisla¬ 
tion a chaos ; and the people in the election of 
their representatives, be presumed to be endowed 
with the gift of prescience in relation to every 
possible case, to which the wants of the country 
might give birth in the great business of dispen¬ 
sing the powers of government. 

I shall now say, sir, but a few words upon the 
third general point I proposed to discuss, viz., the 
expediency of adopting this amendment. As re¬ 
gards the second, third and fourth sections, I have 
endeavored to give my views in their favor as I 
have discussed them in detail. In regard to the 
first section, I would say in a single wor.i, it there 
were no other reason to show the importance of 
its being made a part of the Constitution, the de¬ 
cision of the Supreme Court in the Bred Scott 
case, would be sufficient to determine my vote. 
It has long appeared to me most strange, if not 
alarming, that the great public mind of the United 
States should have seemed so indifferent towards 
the discredit which that decision has brnno-h* nr.. 




1 


on our Republican institutions. Some session or 
two ago, a proposition was made in the national 
Senate for an appropriation to procure a bust of 
the late Chief Justice of the United States to be 
placed in company with those honored memorials 
of Jay, Rutledge, Ellsworth and Marshall, which 
are destined to adorn the Capitol of our Nation, 
through all coming time. Had I been a member 
of that body, I have thought I might have advo¬ 
cated the appropriation with one amendment. I 
would have had placed upon a conspicuous place 
upon the proposed bust, these words in 
commanding capitals: “ A black man has 

NO RIGHTS WHICH A WHITE MAN IS BOUND TO 

RESPECT —ROGER B. TANEY.” I would have 
had the sentiment and the name go along together 
as a negative lesson to the coming generations. I 
would have had the record pass on to the just 
awards of History ; whose office, as Tacitus tells 
us, is, to rejudge the conduct of men ; to snatch 
from oblivion the benevolent actions of the ^ood, 
and to forewarn the dad of the infamy that awaits 
them at the tribunal of posterity. 

Having thus disposed of the three points to 
which I proposed to address myself, I would avail 
myself of the occasion to offer a few remarks up¬ 
on what I believe to be the cause of the political 
troubles which have afflicted this country for the 
last six, if not for the last thirty, years. That 
cause I believe to be a false understanding of what 
is called “ States Rights.” 

And what are States Rights ? The natural 
answer would seem to refer us to the national con¬ 
stitution, where we should expect those rights so 
defined, either by express terms or necessary im¬ 
plications, as that there could be no dispute about 
them. And such would be the case, if the dis¬ 
cussion should stop with the constitution. But it 
does not; for we have a States Rights party, and 
an anti-States Rights party; which of course im¬ 
plies antagonism ; and suggests an issue beyond 
what is contained in the constitution. That issue 
I understand to be expressed by the phrase 
“State Sovereignty.” Are the states of the 
Union, then, sovereign, in the true and absolute 
sense of that terra ? This question I proceed to 
discuss. 

Three conditions, then, have successively attach¬ 
ed to the first thirteen States of the American 
Union. The first was Colonial; the second was 
Sovereign: the third, the conditioH in which they 
now exist, which I will call Municipal. I will 
consider these conditions in their order, 

Eirst, of the Colonial: The Colonies were gov¬ 
ernments independent of each other, but all de¬ 
pendant on the British crown. Although, under 
their grants and charters from the mother country, 
they had the Executive, Judicial and Legislative 
Departments in their governments, they were, in 
their individual positions, in no sense Sovereign. 
They acted in their governments under the war¬ 
rant of certain granted powers. And every 
action beyond these powers, exposed them to a 
forfeiture of their grants. To the extent of these 
grants and charters, they had rights to act; and 
it was the violation of these rights by the mother 
country, guaranteed by these grants and charters, 
that led to the Revolution, and finally, to the 
of Independence. With this event. 


the first, or colonial condition ceased, and the 
second, or sovereign, condition commenced. 

By the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen 
Colonies became thirteen sovereign nations. As 
such they acted in conjunction with each other 
during the first two years of the Revolutionary 
war, without anything to hold them together but 
the outward pressure of a common enemy. In 
the third year of the war—in 1778—articles of 
confederation were entered into. A league of¬ 
fensive and defensive was formed, and these sov¬ 
ereign nations continued under these articles to 
act together down to the termination of the war; 
and beyond that, down to the adoption of the 
present constitution. This league, offensive and 
defensive, between these thirteen nations, was in 
no sense a government^ any more than the alliance 
of Italy and Prussia, against Austria was a gov¬ 
ernment. If the articles of the league are not 
complied with by one of the parties, there is no 
government to enforce them, and the party viola¬ 
ting can be made responsible only by the principle 
of war on the part of the injured party to the 
league. Now the articles of confederation be¬ 
tween the thirteen States, answered tolerably well, 
as long as their very salvation in their new po¬ 
sition of independent sovereignties made it indis- 
sable that they should work in harmony together. 
But when the war was ended, and that outward 
pressure ceased, the confederation or league was 
found to be unequal to the wants of a common 
country. It tried to perform the functions of a gov¬ 
ernment, but from its very nature, could not; and the 
movement of the thirteen sovereignties for any 
purpose of a common weal, was found to be un¬ 
governable, discordant and ruinous to th^ interests , 
of all. Such a state of things would not long i.. 
permitted to remain, and in 1789 it ceased to exist 
with the commencement of the government under 
the present national constitution. And this brings 
us to the third condition I proposed to consider, 
which I call Municipal. 

Now the point I would claim is, that the moment 
the Constitution was formed, and went into ope¬ 
ration, the thirteen States, which, as separate States 
were before bound as a confederacy, having thir¬ 
teen sovereign wills, were now bound as a nation, 
with but one government, and one sovereign will; 
and thus, in fact, as obviously in purpose, the 
change which the Constitution wrought was from 
a corfederation to a government. Thirteen sovereign 
governments were consolidated into one; and this 
whole movement was voluntary and not coerced : 
aiming at a happiness for the American people 
which experience had shown could not be realized 
under one system; and which in the proposed 
change would be as nearly perfected as possible 
under another. The consolidation of thirteen in¬ 
to one required a giving up of the mere empty 
glory of a name, which the phrase “ State sove¬ 
reignty” might have borne, for the substantial 
advantages which the establishment of a govern¬ 
ment for a single nation would secure, under the 
new title, not less honorable, of “ National sove¬ 
reignty,” 

In our third condition, then, we live under a 
government and not a confederacy. We are a social 
compact, under the Constitution, as we were ai 
international compact under the confederacy. Tb 




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first of these two compacts is composed of indi- 
vidnals, the last, of States or nations. The ac¬ 
tion of the jjovcrnment under the Constitution is 
upon the individuals, who compose the social com¬ 
pact. The action of the confederacy was upon 
States composing an international compact. The 
two ideas of confederacy and government then have 
no coincidence or correspondence with each other, 
and the phrase “confederate government” is mean¬ 
ingless. 

i^ow, as in our third condition, the thirteen 
States have changed from an international to a 
social compact, as they have ceased to exercise 
their previous power, as independent nations, and 
have established a government for a single nation, 
thereby yielding every thing distinctive of them as 
separate nations, it follows necessarily that the 
idea of sovereignty passed from its multiplied ap¬ 
plication to the thirteen States, to a single appli¬ 
cation to the consolidated nation. “State sover¬ 
eignty” therefore is a phrase borrowed and con¬ 
tinued from a condition which does not now exist; 
and the use of which should have ceased when, by 
the change of State to Nation, it could only serve 
to cherish a false and vicious idea—an idea upon 
■which the rebel States founded their theory of the 
right of secession; and which, as a power work¬ 
ing outside of the constitution, has cost this na¬ 
tion hundred of thousands of lives and thousands 
of millions of treasure. 

In this connection, sir, I must be permitted to 
enter my protest against the word federal, in any 
ayiplication of it to our national government. 
The word federal, implying a league or treaty, 
has no more application to the government of the 
United States than it has to the government of 
JL'ranee or England. The phrase “Federal Gov¬ 
ernment” as applied to cither of these nations 
would be nonsense in the ear of any intelli¬ 
gent man. The same phrase as applied to the 
United States, would be equally so if it had not 
been used so long and so much by our leading 
statesmen and jurists—Mr. Webster, Mr. Clay, 
Judge Story and all—as that its familiarity to 
our ears prevents its being noticed for its absur¬ 
dity. 

in view of what I have said,—the States 
having by the adoption of the national constitu¬ 
tion, ceased to be separate national sovereignties, 
having substituted a single one for thirteen, thus 
changing the place of their original sovereignties, 
but still preserving the substance—each State its 
jiroper proportion,—I am led to consider the con¬ 
dition of the States since the adoption of the con¬ 
stitution, as strictly Municipal —sustaining as 
States the same relations'’to the United States, as 
they sustained as colonies to the crown of Eng¬ 
land : with this marked difference however; that 
the relation of the colonies to England was one 
of coerced necessity; whereas the relation of the 


several States to the United States is one of choice 
for the most beneficent purposes and the happiest 
ends. 

Two objections have been urged against 
this theory of State sovereignty. First that 
the constitution was adopted by the several 
States in their State capacities, thereby implying 
the exercise of sovereign power. True. But that 
was only the mode of ascertaining the sense of the 
people upon the adoption of the constitution : and 
that mode cannot affect the character of the instru¬ 
ment itself. The action of the State, agreeing to 
the constitution, binds the agreeing State to all 
that the constitution contains ; and to that pro¬ 
vision above all, that the constitution is the work 
of the People of the United States—and not of the 
States, with a reservation of their sovereign ca¬ 
pacities, such as would have nullified the whole 
proceeding. 

The second objection is suggested by my hon¬ 
orable friend, the Senator from South Kingstown 
How, he asks, can my theory stand with that 
clause in the constitution which provides that “all 
powers not herein granted, are reserved respec¬ 
tively to the States and to the people.” The ob¬ 
jection is instantly answered by a reference’to the 
distinction between sovereignty and power. The 
first implies power, but the second does not im¬ 
ply sovereignty—so that the powers referred to 
are not the sovereignty with which the constitu¬ 
tion deals, but only subordinate parts of that sov¬ 
ereignty of which the constitution had not speci¬ 
fically disposed. 

I cannot close these remarks. Sir, without con¬ 
gratulating your Excellency, the Senate and the 
people upon the brilliant prospects which lie be^ 
fore us as a nation. We have fought a great bat¬ 
tle and passed through a fearful ordeal; and we 
are all the stronger for the losses and sufferings 
which have marked our course. The problem so 
long doubtful is forever solved, that a Kepublican 
government may be strong enough to protect itself, 
without being too strong for the liberties of the 
people. Foreign nations have learned too, that the 
Republican idea, which, regarded as a delusion, 
they would treat as an accidental encroachment 
upon old traditions with numbered days, has at 
last approved itself the true foundation of the 
world’s hopes, for the ultimate triumph of univer¬ 
sal freedom. 

I would add, all honor to the gallant living, 
who were participants in that great battle, sur¬ 
viving as they do to glory in their success in vin¬ 
dicating the honor and sustaining the institu¬ 
tions of their country. All honor too, to the la¬ 
mented dead, who, if they could be conscious in 
their graves, would glory in their deaths, as 
having saved them, through the heroic offering of 
their lives, from the sadder alternative of witnessing 
their country’s overthrow and ruin. 







